Kidney/urinary tract stone disease (urolithiasis) is a major health problem throughout the world. Most of the stones associated with urolithiasis are composed of calcium oxalate alone or calcium oxalate plus calcium phosphate. Other disease states have also been associated with excess oxalate. These include, vulvodynia, oxalosis associated with end-stage renal disease, cardiac conductance disorders, Crohns's disease, and other enteric disease states.
Oxalic acid, and/or its salts, oxalate, is found in a wide variety of foods, and is therefore, a component of many constituents in human and animal diets. Increased oxalate absorption may occur after foods containing elevated amounts of oxalic acid are eaten. Foods such as spinach and rhubarb are well known to contain high amounts of oxalate, but a multitude of other foods and beverages also contain oxalate. Because oxalate is found in such a wide variety of foods, diets that are low in oxalate and which are also palatable are hard to formulate. In addition, compliance with a low oxalate diet is often problematic.
The risk for formation of kidney stones revolves around a number of factors that are not yet completely understood. Kidney or urinary tract stone disease occurs in as many as 12% of the population in Western countries and about 70% of these stones are composed of calcium oxalate or of calcium oxalate plus calcium phosphate. Some individuals (e.g. patients with intestinal disease such as Crohn's disease, inflammatory bowel disease, or steatorrhea and also patients that have undergone jejunoileal bypass surgery) absorb more of the oxalate in their diets than do others. For these individuals, the incidence of oxalate urolithiasis increases markedly. The increased disease incidence is due to increased levels of oxalate in kidneys and urine, and this, the most common hyperoxaluric syndrome in humans, is known as enteric hyperoxaluria. Oxalate is also a problem in patients with end-stage renal disease and there is recent evidence that elevated urinary oxalate is also involved in vulvar vestibulitis (vulvodynia).
Enteric coated compositions comprising oxalate degrading bacteria have been suggested for reducing oxalate concentrations. However, enteric coated compositions pass through the stomach in intact form, i.e. the coating is intact and accordingly, no oxalate can be degraded in the stomach. Accordingly, there is still a need for developing compositions that enable degradation of oxalate already in the stomach in order to degrade especially dietary oxalate. Moreover, such compositions are suitable for use in the treatment of enteric and absorptive hyperoxalurias such as hyperoxalurias causing recurrent stone disease. The objective with such a treatment is for the patients to have normal urinary oxalate levels.